Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 7

By Samir Ali – Trend:

The International Committee of the Red Cross, together with the State Comission of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons, has published statistics on saliva samples taken from the relatives of missing persons of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Trend reports.

Over the past year, 2,170 saliva samples were taken from the relatives of 775 missing persons.

Saliva samples are taken from relatives of the missing persons and are used for possible exhumation in the future.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.